It seems as if we are living the Eagles song, "life in the fast lane", in this era of unprecedented change. The tendency is often to hunker down and instinctively hit the gas pedal instead of thinking through the situation.

In fact we were just having a robust conversation on Facebook about disruption and getting stuck. Here is what our friend and BLI thought leader, Emmanuel Gobillot had to say, There is one other reason why, as individuals we find it hard to see "the next thing". The better we get at what we do, the least we can see it being done any other ways. This functional fixedness is particularly relevant for professionals (eg CPAs) as the more qualified you become the more "logical" (ie fixed) things become. It is a wicked problem as it is hard to realise we are victims of it. The post went on with some great insights from Jody Padar (BLI thought leader and author of the Radical CPA) and one of our leadership academy alums, Amber Setter.

The bottomline is that change and disruption can (and will) overwhelm us unless we learn how to think differently.  I think the starting point should be this question, "What can we give our customers the ability to do that they currently can't do but would want if they only knew they could?" If you start with this powerful question, it will focus you on a positive future viewpoint. So here are our five ways to get unstuck.

1. Learn how to be a future scout and "see around corners" by understanding emerging trends and issues.
2. Understand the difference between "hard trends" and "soft trends" in order to base some of your work on certainty.
3. Make sure you have flipped any challenges into potential opportunities.
4. Identify high leverage (and low risk) opportunities.
5. Create a compelling future that maximizes those opportunities.

These are just the beginning of our efforts to help you get unstuck and on your way to a powerful and positive future riding these waves of change.

And if you are interested in learning more about this and truly changing the way you think, join us on May 4th (live and webcast) As we work with one of the world's top business thinkers and futurists, Dan Burrus and learn to become the Anticipatory CPA.